Category Archive: .Dawkins, Richard

Dawkins: I think indoctrination means teaching in a way that is not critical. You’re not teaching children ‘this is the way to think, this is the way to evaluate evidence, be critical, look for what’s plausible, look for the evidence’. That’s the right way to teach. The wrong way to teach is indoctrination, which is ‘you should believe X, you must believe X, X is what our people have always believed, X is what’s written down in our holy book, therefore you must believe it’. That’s indoctrination.

Al-Khalili: Of course, you’re teaching people how to think, how to be critical about their world-view. Presumably, a lot of people can think about it and say, Yes, and I’ve come to the conclusion there is a god.

Dawkins: Yes, a lot do that, and good luck to them, that’s fine. At least they’ve thought about it. [23:55]